4 ms·

Kipochi, a Bitcoin wallet service, now supports M-Pesa

53 points by danpal 13y ago

txttran 13y ago
1/3 of Kenyans use M-Pesa, a mobile money transferring platform. M-Pesa recently added support for bitcoin. So while 1/3 of Kenyans have a bitcoin wallet, most of them may not even be aware of this fact.
- tveita 13y ago
  They have added nothing of the sort, as far as I can determine. A bitcoin site added M-Pesa as an option for payment. If there is any official affiliation, I'd like to see the proof. No mention of bitcoins or Kipochi appears on http://www.mpesa.in/ http://www.mpesa.in/ You may as well say that 2/3 of Americans have a Paypal account because they have a credit card. I've seen several articles now that heavily imply that this is an official M-Pesa service, which smells a bit scummy to me, if not outright scammy. Edit: On their blog they explicitly state: "The Kipochi to M-Pesa service is operated by an independent 3rd party company in Kenya and is not directly affiliated with Safaricom the owners of M-Pesa." http://kipochi.com/blog http://kipochi.com/blog
  - WhoIsSatoshi 13y ago
    I would like to see proof as well, currently this seems to be mostly hearsay and journalist sensationalism.
  - notahacker 13y ago
    It's the second article I've seen on HN shilling bitcoin as a viable currency for Africans with blatantly false claims. It's a worrying trend.
  - pelle 13y ago
    I am the co-founder and CTO of Kipochi. This is not an official integration with M-Pesa. M-Pesa users don't automatically have a bitcoin wallet either. There have been a small handful of good journalists covering the story, but way too many try to fit it into their very tiny world view and invent things that sound cool. Unfortunately these kinds of sensationalist stories can cause us or anyone else working with Bitcoin problems in the future.
jareau 13y ago
This could be a huge disrupter to the ~$40B African remittance market. "In all of Western Africa...70 per cent of payments are handled by one money transfer operator [1]." I have a hard time believing that stat will hold with the M-pesa network linked up to the Bitcoin network. [1] http://www.ifad.org/remittances/maps/africa.htm http://www.ifad.org/remittances/maps/africa.htm
uuilly 13y ago
I just got back from Kenya 2 days ago. I was blown away at the M-Pesa penetration. They are skipping credit cards just as they skipped land lines.
- mtgx 13y ago
  Don't you like that part about technology/disruption? Normally, it would need to trickle down, which means some countries would always be decades behind others when it comes to a certain type of infrastructure or technology. But thanks to disruption, not only can some countries completely skip one or two types of technology at once, and jump straight to the latest one, but sometimes they can actually get ahead of the "developed" countries, especially if those countries are too "entrenched" with a certain technology, and it resists moving on to the new disruptive one (so basically the same rules of disruptions that apply to companies, apply to countries, too). If Bitcoin keeps going to achieve its true potential, I could see how the first country to declare Bitcoin as its national currency, wouldn't be a "developed country", but an African country or something.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    Seems like that also falls in line with some of the points made by Thiel in his debate with Andreessen [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo
jdmitch 13y ago
Firstly, saying one third of kenyans use M-Pesa doesn't really reflect its impact fully - from the Economist's article on mobile money in East Africa last week: "17m of Kenya’s 19m adults are signed up to M-PESA. Cash equivalent to nearly one-third of Kenya’s GDP washes through the service." http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21579870-east-african-governments-are-targeting-telecoms-firms-charging-mobile http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21579870... Ultimately, the move toward less regulated currency is driven by the Kenyan Government's decision to tax M-Pesa transactions by 10% which threatens to tip them towards no longer being the most efficient way to move money. This is just a clever work-around to the poor regulation of mobile money.
dobbsbob 13y ago
Mpesa can be loaded with online banking which means fraud potential if you can convert it to BTC. Converting BTC to Mpesa is no problem because they are guaranteed funds, so money remittance is a real possibility but yeah no evidence this is happening
mtgx 13y ago
I've been hoping since early days of Bitcoin that it will eventually get used in some countries in Africa, where inflation can be rampant, and something like Bitcoin could actually offer "stability". The only problem was that you need at least a smartphone to make it work - and electricity to keep charging those smartphones. But I think some of the countries are getting there and are starting to meet the prerequisites.
languagehacker 13y ago
Can't be any worse than the Zimbabwean Dollar
brianbreslin 13y ago
Very excited about this. I'm friends with one of the cofounders. Think remittances as a huge market for this. Also look at companies like Xoom that this takes on. or western union.
Toyama 13y ago
It's great, I hoped that we'll have more distributed p2p services.
pelle 13y ago
I'm the CTO of Kipochi who is rolling out this service in Africa. First of all this article greatly exaggerates things. Anyone with a mobile data enabled phone theoretically has a bitcoin wallet using our service. We are rolling out feature phone specific services as well, but roll out is limited by operators.

53 points by danpal 13y ago

1/3 of Kenyans use M-Pesa, a mobile money transferring platform. M-Pesa recently added support for bitcoin. So while 1/3 of Kenyans have a bitcoin wallet, most of them may not even be aware of this fact.

tveita 13y ago
They have added nothing of the sort, as far as I can determine. A bitcoin site added M-Pesa as an option for payment. If there is any official affiliation, I'd like to see the proof. No mention of bitcoins or Kipochi appears on http://www.mpesa.in/ http://www.mpesa.in/ You may as well say that 2/3 of Americans have a Paypal account because they have a credit card. I've seen several articles now that heavily imply that this is an official M-Pesa service, which smells a bit scummy to me, if not outright scammy. Edit: On their blog they explicitly state: "The Kipochi to M-Pesa service is operated by an independent 3rd party company in Kenya and is not directly affiliated with Safaricom the owners of M-Pesa." http://kipochi.com/blog http://kipochi.com/blog
- WhoIsSatoshi 13y ago
  I would like to see proof as well, currently this seems to be mostly hearsay and journalist sensationalism.
- notahacker 13y ago
  It's the second article I've seen on HN shilling bitcoin as a viable currency for Africans with blatantly false claims. It's a worrying trend.
- pelle 13y ago
  I am the co-founder and CTO of Kipochi. This is not an official integration with M-Pesa. M-Pesa users don't automatically have a bitcoin wallet either. There have been a small handful of good journalists covering the story, but way too many try to fit it into their very tiny world view and invent things that sound cool. Unfortunately these kinds of sensationalist stories can cause us or anyone else working with Bitcoin problems in the future.

jareau 13y ago

This could be a huge disrupter to the ~$40B African remittance market. "In all of Western Africa...70 per cent of payments are handled by one money transfer operator [1]." I have a hard time believing that stat will hold with the M-pesa network linked up to the Bitcoin network. [1] http://www.ifad.org/remittances/maps/africa.htm http://www.ifad.org/remittances/maps/africa.htm

uuilly 13y ago

I just got back from Kenya 2 days ago. I was blown away at the M-Pesa penetration. They are skipping credit cards just as they skipped land lines.

mtgx 13y ago
Don't you like that part about technology/disruption? Normally, it would need to trickle down, which means some countries would always be decades behind others when it comes to a certain type of infrastructure or technology. But thanks to disruption, not only can some countries completely skip one or two types of technology at once, and jump straight to the latest one, but sometimes they can actually get ahead of the "developed" countries, especially if those countries are too "entrenched" with a certain technology, and it resists moving on to the new disruptive one (so basically the same rules of disruptions that apply to companies, apply to countries, too). If Bitcoin keeps going to achieve its true potential, I could see how the first country to declare Bitcoin as its national currency, wouldn't be a "developed country", but an African country or something.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  Seems like that also falls in line with some of the points made by Thiel in his debate with Andreessen [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo

jdmitch 13y ago

Firstly, saying one third of kenyans use M-Pesa doesn't really reflect its impact fully - from the Economist's article on mobile money in East Africa last week: "17m of Kenya’s 19m adults are signed up to M-PESA. Cash equivalent to nearly one-third of Kenya’s GDP washes through the service." http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21579870-east-african-governments-are-targeting-telecoms-firms-charging-mobile http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21579870... Ultimately, the move toward less regulated currency is driven by the Kenyan Government's decision to tax M-Pesa transactions by 10% which threatens to tip them towards no longer being the most efficient way to move money. This is just a clever work-around to the poor regulation of mobile money.

dobbsbob 13y ago

Mpesa can be loaded with online banking which means fraud potential if you can convert it to BTC. Converting BTC to Mpesa is no problem because they are guaranteed funds, so money remittance is a real possibility but yeah no evidence this is happening

mtgx 13y ago

I've been hoping since early days of Bitcoin that it will eventually get used in some countries in Africa, where inflation can be rampant, and something like Bitcoin could actually offer "stability". The only problem was that you need at least a smartphone to make it work - and electricity to keep charging those smartphones. But I think some of the countries are getting there and are starting to meet the prerequisites.

languagehacker 13y ago

Can't be any worse than the Zimbabwean Dollar

brianbreslin 13y ago

Very excited about this. I'm friends with one of the cofounders. Think remittances as a huge market for this. Also look at companies like Xoom that this takes on. or western union.

Toyama 13y ago

It's great, I hoped that we'll have more distributed p2p services.

pelle 13y ago

I'm the CTO of Kipochi who is rolling out this service in Africa. First of all this article greatly exaggerates things. Anyone with a mobile data enabled phone theoretically has a bitcoin wallet using our service. We are rolling out feature phone specific services as well, but roll out is limited by operators.